Are you in darkness?

It takes but a single ray of light to break the darkness
of the night, even though it may be a long time before the
fullness of the midday sun is reached.
--  the Upanishads.

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Thirst

When you say to a thirsty man,
"Over here! There is water in this cup."
Does the thirsty man reply,
"That is only your opinion,
Where is the evidence to substantiate your
assertion that this is water?"
--  Rumi
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School of Prayer

Is it time for a School of Prayer? This month's topic is "Time is God's Gift."
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Prayer

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, has advised
those who are unsure how to pray to think of it as sunbathing,
saying that it tells us more about prayer than any amount of
religious jargon. "You're not going to get a better tan by
screwing up your eyes and concentrating," he said in conver-
sation with Terry Waite on Radio 2 on Tuesday. "You give the
time, and that's it. All you have to do is turn up. And then
things change, at their own pace. You simply have to be there
where the light can get at you."
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Control

So much of what we do is to satisfy our need for control. Tom Ehrich said:
I yearn for the day when we Christians stop fighting about control issues, and start doing what Jesus called us to do. We are so concerned about controlling how people behave, that we forget to love them as they are. We are so concerned about doctrinal cleansing, ethical cleansing and political cleansing that we fail to see the logs in our own eyes, and even more, we fail to give what God gives, namely, mercy. We are so concerned about whom to keep out that we fail to let hope and forgiveness in.
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Mystery

This morning I sent the following quote from Fr. Robert to a friend of mine as an encouragement in his search for God.

If Christian mystery is like a mystery novel, we can seek to
"solve" it through rigorous Sherlock Holmes logic working on
the clues. But ultimate Mystery is thoroughly ineffable, and
we should rejoice in that, like little children amazed by the
immensity of it all. So, as you say, the poets, and also the
mystics, use paradox to push us beyond linear logic into
possible little glimpses of the ineffable. A "luminous darkness"
(John of the Cross), a knowing through "unknowing" a "learned
ignorance" where "God can be taken and held by love but not
by thought" (The Cloud of Unknowing, ch vi). 

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Everyone has faith

Even skeptics have faith. They have faith that skepticism is true. Likewise agnostics have faith that agnosticism is true. There are no neutral positions when it comes to beliefs.
-- Norman L. Geisler & Frank Turek I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist
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True or false?

Well-meaning gentiles and Jews invented the "Judeo-Christian tradition" to paper over their theological differences, and it has been a boon to civic comity.
-- Gary Rosen in his review in the NY Times of Robert Wuthnow's America and the Challenges of Religious Diversity
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To whom shall we go?

During last Sunday's liturgy, the following words struck me like a blow to the head:
"Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life."
Oh, my stubborn head! Why can't I keep my Lord in the center of all I do, all I think?
There is no other answer; there is no one else to go to -- for truth, for love, for mercy, for eternal life.
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More thoughts from a funeral

At the same funeral referred to in the previous post, the presiding pastor, a retired bishop, talked about how pain & suffering brings about the true nature of the person. "It was a powerful testimony to see that he was the same when facing death as we had known him all these years."
Will someone be able to say that about me at my funeral?
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Thoughts at a funeral

About a week ago I was at the funeral of a pastor-friend. Thoughts shared by the pastor bringing the message:
When our pastor, spouse, and friend died, he experienced significant changes: He has no more need to hope -- it has come about; he has no more need to believe & trust -- it has come about.

Lord, we too look forward to being with you. Until we are, grant us the faith to hope, believe, and trust. Amen.
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Getting out of the house

An acqauintance of mine has a difficult time getting out of her home. Her disability is not physical, but mental. She will make appointments for lunch, a visit, or shopping. But when the time comes, more often than not she will cancel. It brings to mind the following quote from Thoreau:
Staying inside the house breeds a sort of insanity always. Every house is in this sense a hospital. A night and a forenoon is as much confinement to those wards as I can stand - and then I must go outdoors.
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